This invention is generally related to equipment designed for hand held data collection in the petrochemical, industrial, retail and military applications. Computers have become key tools for increasing the productivity and accuracy of mobile data collection. During the 1980's, U.S. businesses invested nearly $1 trillion in information technology. For most industries this means getting more work done with the same or smaller work force. As competition increases and companies continue to downsize, the drive for intelligent solutions to improved management through automation has developed a large market for electronic and computer solutions. The concept for this new era of electronic productivity revolves around moving information from the manager's office to the workers for on- the-spot action.
The portable data collection industry is well developed, the standard application of this technology is with a hand-held computer. Instead of carrying a clipboard, a worker now carries a computer. The computer now poses a new problem to a large class of workers which is how to carry the computer when other tools are also required to be held, merchandise moved, equipment operated or difficult locations to reach.
The typical embodiment of the hand-held computer includes a microprocessor which in most cases uses the disk operating system (DOS) designed and licensed by Microsoft. The typical hand-held computer has a backlit LCD screen with 8 to 10 lines of 20 to 40 characters each and an alphanumeric keyboard. The keyboard is usually arranged with text listed in alphabetical order and a numeric keypad. There exists hand-held devices which can meet a variety of certification criteria or normal office use to explosive atmospheres. The design usually followed by these hand-held devices is to place the display on top of the unit with a keyboard below the display. On top of the unit will be a variety of peripheral connectors for serial communications, power and in some cases analog input from instrumentation. In most cases these hand held devices have been designed to interface with automatic identification devices such as bar code or magnetic stripe readers.
Other applications for this invention in addition to a arm worn computer or data collection device include, but are not limited to the following: 1) A portable position indication. This is accomplished by adding a GPS receiver to the device and storing city or terrain maps on a PCMCIA card along with software for overlaying the device's physical location on the exact location as shown on the map. The portability of the unit along with all weather applications are excellent for using the invention in the car, the boat, hiking or site seeing. 2) A portable position indicator for the visually impaired. As in the first application above, the invention can be combined with a speech synthesizer and software to translate the invention's physical location as shown on the map into a spoken description of the location. This will permit the visually impaired to have much greater mobility about the city or country. 3) The invention is useful to the military for portable position indication using the UTM coordinates on military maps, this can be further combined with radio frequency signals to send each individual's position back to command. This level of battlefield electronification will reduce friendly-fire injuries or deaths and improve battlefield command. 4) The research and education industry will be able to use the invention's all weather portability and interface capabilities to easily accommodate data gathering requirements associated with research activities. 5) The construction and other labor intensive industries will find the invention useful along with radio frequency signals to communicate clear instructions and drawings to remote crews. 6) Law enforcement, security and emergency management will find the invention useful for portable information processing and improved incident command and management.